The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Welcome to a spooooooky Novel Ideas Halloween episode, featuring “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving. This book short story is about an awkward, lovestruck schoolteacher who is terrorized by a headless horseman. Actually, it would be more accurately described as a a very silly person falling for a very silly prank. Probably. Irving doesn’t really commit himself to it one or the other. Listen to the episode to hear us discuss whether this is actually a horror story, adaptations of the story, general silliness, and why this story became a classic.
Also, there’s a little bit of schedule housecleaning to square away this week. Ben is going to be out of town next week, so there won’t be an episode the week of November 4. However, we’re going to air two episodes the following week, aiming for a Monday and Thursday drop date for those two episodes.
The music bump is Psalm 105 “Unto the Lord Lift Thankful Voices.” The Puritan version would be something like this, only more boring. This applies to the Puritan version of most things.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – 1700’s Dudebro
Recommendations:
5/10 Not long enough to warn you against it, but not good enough to recommend reading it.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Just your friendly annual reminder that November is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a novel during the month of November, so it’s an exercise in masochism as much as anything. Actually, the goal is to write 50,000 words during the month, which is closer to a novella, most commercial novels being in the 90,000 word range. That being said, averaging approximately 1,700 words per day for an entire month isn’t easy. Novel Ideas will be attempting to defeat NaNo (as it is frequently abbreviated) this year, for the first time in Ben’s case, and AGAIN in Gabs’s case because she is crazed. Feel like trying with us? Let us know!
This entry was posted in Admin, Episodes and tagged 1700's dudebro, adaptations, Ben's a nerd, black authors, feminism, Halloween, high school comedy, horror standards, period appropriate, poking fun, psalmody, racism, schedule, short story, silliness, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, tongue in cheek, Washington Irving, why is this a classic?.
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